POST-PRODUCTION
The footage had been shot. The actors had gone home. The crew had moved on. All that was left was a case with seventeen miniDV cassettes that to Klavun were worth more than their weight in gold. It was then up to a broke and exhausted Klavun to turn almost seventeen hours of raw footage into a ninety minute masterpiece.
But unlike so many directors, Klavun also had to go back to his glamorous job of waiting tables in order to survive. Then, not only did he have to edit the film, he had to dig into his background as a recording engineer and artist to master the sound and write the soundtrack, jobs that are next to always given to others to do. But, of course, that would be with films with a larger budget.
Before going into post-production Klavun did have an idea of what he was doing and confidence that he could get things done, but it was still a huge learning process. "I really had to hone my skills in color correction, sound design," states Klavun, "and creating the magic of turning a sometimes questionable performance into an acceptable one. It was a lot of pressure because if I couldn't figure out how to do something, it wasn't like there was someone else there to do it. It was a long lonely job. It's really easy to lose sight of the big picture and get depressed, especially when this is all you do with your spare time for over a year. I had to keep reminding myself why I was doing it."
Klavun's goal was to make a film that was competive in all aspects with films shot with ten to a hundred times the budget. And without hiring anyone to help him. So Klavun added to his role as screenwriter, producer and director to also take on the jobs of editor, sound engineer, foley artist and composer, to create a product that is indeed quite arguably of the same caliber as films with over one hundred times the budget.
Klavun added to his role as screenwriter, producer and director to also take on the jobs of editor, sound engineer, foley artist and composer, to create a product that is indeed quite arguably of the same caliber as films with over one hundred times the budget.